Saturday, May 22, 2010

Cabbage Rice

Cabbage rice was an all time favourite often cooked by my mum when I was living in Singapore. It is the kind of dish that you will not find on the menus of restaurants, food courts or coffee shops as it is essentially not a glamour dish but a home-cooked dish. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I think cabbage rice is native to the Hokkien Chinese in Singapore and Malaysia.

My mum can cook cabbage rice and pumpkin rice very well but I did not jot down her recipe. So I had to do some research before I finally master my cabbage rice recipe. Since then it has become a dish that I cook very often in Belgium.

1. Heat up a wok and stir-fry the belly pork til slightly browned. Set the belly pork aside, and retain the pork fat in the work.

2. Add the chopped garlic and stir-fry until fragrant.

3. Add the dried shrimps and chinese mushrooms (drained from the water) and stir-fry for 1 min until fragrant.

4. Add the shredded cabbage and pre-fried belly pork. Mix well. Let the cabbage simmer for 3 min or so until soft. Season with light soya sauce, dark soya sauce and a pinch of salt and pepper to taste.

5. Finally add in the rice, stir well and make sure the rice is well-mixed with the other ingredients and well coated with the seasoning. Stir fry for 1 min or so.

6. Transfer everything into the rice cooker. Add 1 cup of water (water used for soaking the mushrooms or dried shrimps) for 2 cups of rice. Press the COOK button on the rice cooker and wait for the rice to be cooked. Halfway through the cooking, open the rice cooker, and stir the rice for a while, to make sure the top and bottom parts are evenly cooked.

Note : Usually when cooking plain rice, I will add water until the rice is fully immersed and the water level is slightly above the rice. But for cooking cabbage rice, you need not add too much water, as the cabbage itself will release moisture during cooking. What happened during my first attempt of cooking cabbage rice was that, I added 2 cups of water for 2 cups of rice and the rice became mushy and porridge-like. So I fine-tuned it and finally came up with the proportion of 1 cup of water for every 2 cups of rice.The amount of water should be between 1 to 1.5 cups of water, depending on the amount of cabbage you use and the type of rice cooker.

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